Changes in the ethnic map of Kolozs and Bihar counties in the period between 1966–2002

Abstract

The authors, József Benedek and Egon Nagy, university teachers of Social Geography at the University of Kolozsvár, conclude their analysis with the warning that the subject of the rates and number of Hungarians and half-Hungarians in Transylvania should be treated more delicately. It is certain that the ethnical losers of the socialist industrialization and village-to-town migration were the Transylvanian cities where, before the First World War, the Hungarian inhabitants formed a majority - in 1956 Kolozsvár, Hunyad, Nagyvárad etc. were mostly hungarian cities. In 2002, only Szalonta and Érmihályfalva could be counted as such. Previous researches failed to notice a group of communities where changes seemed to favor the numbers of the Hungarian population. Future strategies have to build upon this fact. The ethnic homogenization of the villages was a success especially in villages lying close to the cities, and in strongly industrialized communities. But in the traditional hungarian ethnic enclosures (in Kalotaszeg, Mezőség) we can distinguish a group, where the rate of hungarian inhabitants has grown